Someday Funnies

[Jeff of Earth-J]

“The Someday Funnies is the long-awaited collection of comic strips created in the early 1970s by world-famous artists and writers such as C. C. Beck, René Goscinny, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby, Moebius, Art Spiegelman, and Gahan Wilson. What started out as a special insert for Rolling Stone took on a life—and mythology—of its own as writer/editor Michel Choquette traveled the world, commissioning this visual chronicle of the 1960s, only to find himself without a publishing partner or the financial support to continue. Forty years later, readers finally get to experience this legendary anthology as Choquette celebrates the birth, death, and resurrection of The Someday Funnies—129 previously unpublished strips by 169 writers and artists.”

The Someday Funnies is an impressive, exhaustive and nigh-overwhelming piece of scholarship in comics form. I spent hours reading it last night, and still only barely scratched the surface. Each artist presents a different topic relevant to the sixties. Most artists, by request, left a blank space in their composition which has been filled with a modern narrative of Michel Choquette’s journey, in caricature, as he sets about the task of securing the talent. Most of the submissions a one page, some two or three, a few are smaller. Each is annotated in the back of the book, put in historical perspective and including bios of the writers and artists. There is also a section which translates the foreign language submissions.

So far, I’ve concentrated on the pages by those with whose work I am most familiar: those mentioned above, plus Will Eisner, Wally Wood, John Severin, Herb Trimpe, Frank Brunner, Stan Goldberg, Dick Giordano, Denny O’Neil and Trina Robbins, in no particular order (other than how they pop into my head), to name but a few. One of my favorite ones I’ve read so far is a three-page sequence by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith featuring Conan, Sherlock Holmes and the wizard Shazam’s investigation of the Kennedy assassination. Eventually I will start at the beginning and read straight through. This is going to take me weeks!

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

I bought this because I heard about it on the 11 O'Clock Comics podcast. This is such a great book. I was born in 1974, but this reminds me of looking through my parents' books from the 60's and 70's. It reminds me of feathered hair, the big sunglasses, the bell-bottoms, and my few faint memories of the 70's.

Over the past couple years, I've been getting more and more into the comics of the 70's--the Marvel books (the horror books in particular) and the DC books such as The Brave and the Bold. This is the first time my attention has turned to the past as far as the classic books go. I've also gotten into Jack Kirby's stuff over the past couple years... I just bought Kirby: The King of Comics from Half Price Books today.

Anyway, I love what I've read of this book thus far, and I can't wait to get into the rest of it. It's really a treat to read while thinking about my formerly two-dimensional parents and what was going through their minds at the time of the writing and drawing of this book.

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...Given its' " looking back at the 60s , maaaaaann " concept and Rolling Stone's connection witrh it , I've been a little concerned that it might fall a bit into the 60s memorializing that - well - Stone magazine itself can somewhat fall into , I have wondered whether the occasional creator of more a conservative-ish perspective/place on the scale/set of opinions - C. C. Beck ( I believe . ) , ferinstance - might be of interest for their ( I would imagine . ) less liking " The Sixties " opinions , just for another county heard from...Is Steve Ditko in it ?